The second of “Grandpa Spanielson’s Chicken Pox Stories” matches the first, Octopus (January 2005), for rib-tickling, comfy charm. Young Barney, speckled with chicken pox, rests uncomfortably in bed until Grandpa, sent outside by Grandma to wash windows, climbs a ladder to Barney’s room and regales the pup with a distracting tale from his supposed days as Fire Chief. This one’s about the time he and the crew rescued broad-beamed Mrs. Piggerman from her freezer after her snout stuck to an icy box of chocolates. Hysterical. Fledgling readers will happily sit down with the floppy-eared patient to hear Grandpa’s sly embedded yarn—finished off to cozy perfection with a cup of hot cocoa brought in at the end by Grandma. While no one wishes Barney’s chicken pox to last forever, readers will certainly want Grandpa’s tales to keep on making them laugh even if they have to become Grandpa’s head-cold stories. (Easy reader. 5-7)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-051093-5
Page Count: 48
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A sweet iteration of the “Big Bad Wolf Mellows Out” theme. Here, an old wolf does some soul searching and then learns to like vegetable stew after a half-frozen lamb appears on his doorstep, falls asleep in his arms, then wakes to give him a kiss. “I can’t eat a lamb who needs me! I might get heartburn!” he concludes. Clad in striped leggings and a sleeveless pullover decorated with bands of evergreens, the wolf comes across as anything but dangerous, and the lamb looks like a human child in a fleecy overcoat. No dreams are likely to be disturbed by this book, but hardened members of the Oshkosh set might prefer the more credible predators and sense of threat in John Rocco’s Wolf! Wolf! (March 2007) or Delphine Perrot’s Big Bad Wolf and Me (2006). (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-58925-067-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tiger Tales
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A retro-futuristic romp, literally and figuratively screwy.
Robo-parents Diode and Lugnut present daughter Cathode with a new little brother—who requires, unfortunately, some assembly.
Arriving in pieces from some mechanistic version of Ikea, little Flange turns out to be a cute but complicated tyke who immediately falls apart…and then rockets uncontrollably about the room after an overconfident uncle tinkers with his basic design. As a squad of helpline techies and bevies of neighbors bearing sludge cake and like treats roll in, the cluttered and increasingly crowded scene deteriorates into madcap chaos—until at last Cath, with help from Roomba-like robodog Sprocket, stages an intervention by whisking the hapless new arrival off to a backyard workshop for a proper assembly and software update. “You’re such a good big sister!” warbles her frazzled mom. Wiesner’s robots display his characteristic clean lines and even hues but endearingly look like vaguely anthropomorphic piles of random jet-engine parts and old vacuum cleaners loosely connected by joints of armored cable. They roll hither and thither through neatly squared-off panels and pages in infectiously comical dismay. Even the end’s domestic tranquility lasts only until Cathode spots the little box buried in the bigger one’s packing material: “TWINS!” (This book was reviewed digitally with 9-by-22-inch double-page spreads viewed at 52% of actual size.)
A retro-futuristic romp, literally and figuratively screwy. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-544-98731-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2020
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